1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to hand tools and, more particularly, to hand tools for facilitating the removal of items from confined locations.
2. Related Art
Various hand tools for extracting a swollen or bent glow plug from a diesel combustion engine are currently available. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,584,662 describes an extractor tool that has an externally threaded shaft, an internally threaded sleeve that engages the externally threaded shaft, and a fixed cavity formed in one end of the externally threaded shaft. The cavity has a side entry to permit the insertion of the glow plug into the cavity in a direction normal to the shaft and a pair of opposing shoulders integrally formed in opposing sidewalls of the cavity to engage the glow plug. The sleeve threads down the shaft until it contacts the engine block. Rotating the sleeve exerts a pulling force on the shaft, which is transferred to the inserted glow plug by the opposing shoulders in the cavity. This pulls both the shaft and the inserted glow plug away from the engine block.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,427,303 describes a glow plug pulling device that includes an elongate shaft having a threaded inner end portion and a smooth outer end portion. The smooth outer end portion has a hammer stop fixedly secured thereto. A collet is coupled with respect to the threaded inner end portion of the elongated shaft. The collet has an outer end having an internally threaded aperture for coupling with the threaded inner end portion of the elongated shaft. The collet has a hex shaped open inner end for engaging the hex shaped outer free end of the glow plug. The collet has a compression sleeve secured thereto intermediate the outer end and inner end thereof. A slide hammer is slidably disposed on the smooth outer end portion of the elongated shaft. The slide hammer has an open inner end dimensioned for receiving and engaging the compression sleeve of the collet therein. The slide hammer has a knurled outer surface.
Both of these prior art hand tools are complex, difficult to operate and time consuming to utilize. Moreover, both require the user to exert a pulling force to pull the glow plug from the diesel engine. However, a pulling force may be counter-productive when portions of the glow plug are stuck in the diesel engine because the heating element is swollen, bent or broken. Thus, prior art glow plug pullers will often bend or break the misshaped glow plug heating element which requires more time-consuming and costly removal operations or even damage to the diesel engine. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to ameliorate these and other shortcomings, limitations, problems, and difficulties presented by use of current glow plug puller devices with an easier to use glow plug removal tool.